August 16, 2011

With the advent of Texas governor Rick Perry in the GOP Presidential race, there has been a lot of talk about the large number of jobs created in Texas v. the rest of the country. Much of the liberal critique of Perry (Paul Krugman, Ezra Klein, Matthew Yglesias) is finally reflecting my 2005 analysis of Texas v. California, The Dirt Gap. Hey, it doesn't have much to do with Perry, it has to do with there being a lot of land in Texas, and not much environmental regulation, so housing prices are cheap!

A couple of additional Texas themes of mine that may become conventional wisdom in, oh, a half dozen years are:

- The bad news for Democrats from the Texas experiment is that it suggests that driving down the skill level of the population through mass immigration means that the only affordable, feasible kind of government in a future heavily mestizo America is a low tax - low spend - low regulation - conservative values Texas-style Republicanism.

- The bad news for Republicans out of Texas is that just such policies attract in so many immigrants and encourage so much fertility among immigrants that the Republicans will eventually get swamped demographically.

One thing Texas does more effectively than California is collect taxes. It doesn't matter what the tax rate is if you can't actually collect because folks can find ways to evade it. In Texas, the main taxes are property, and sales taxes. Illegals have to pay the property taxes with their rents. Texas property taxes are fairly high in urban/suburban areas. That depresses property values because even though the payment on a mortgage on a $250k house might only be $1000 a month, you have to add $700 in property taxes. So, instead of the builder and lender making a higher margin, the state gets the extra $$ that the resident pays either through his mortgage payment or his rent. Also, sales taxes are pretty straightforward to collect as well. California uses income tax which is harder to collect especially when folks are unemployed or work for cash etc. With high business taxes, merchants and service providers are more motivated to offer cash discounts to hide income. However, with a low business tax, there is much less incentive because even an 8% sales tax doesn't dissuade consumers.

The key for any state is structure taxes so as to actually collect, not just have some official rate that many are able to avoid.

That's only true for mestizo levels of below 35%. Once they approach majority levels in a population, the mestizo's will convert America to Mexican-style low-regulation.

Texas is already demographically doomed. In the next twenty years white Republicans there will slide into the minority and the state will become the next California. This is scientic fact, not opinion. The majority of young Texans are already mestizo.

Over at Texas Monthly, Paul Burka has an interesting post about Texas, Rick Perry and football:

"Texas A&M’s move to the Southeast Conference is not just about football. It is also about politics. It is a way for Perry to validate himself as a southerner. In one bold move–and don’t think for a moment that Perry didn’t orchestrate this–Perry has used A&M to leverage himself into prominence in the South, an area where a Republican presidential candidate must run well. The A&M culture and the southern culture mesh well. It’s military, it’s patriotic (if you overlook the Civil War), it’s athletics overshadowing academics at most institutions, the exceptions being Vanderbilt and Georgia."

Watching the realignment of college football conferences is a glimpse into the political future of the nation. Red States consolidating in every way, as much as possible, to dissociate themselves from Blue States. If you currently live in a Blue State, now would be a good time to move.

Second Anonymous makes a very interesting point about the collectibility of taxes--one I've neither heard nor thought of before. Which may only reflect my own ignorance and/or slow thinking, but it's still a good point, no?

Not exactly. So long as there is a significant higher earning white population it will make sense for a Mestizo dominated public sector to find ways to extract and spend as much of their money as possible. It's only after the white population nearly vanishes that a place will resort to government on the cheap, where low paid civil servants demand gratuities from the served.

Really got a kick over the Dems claiming that it was the Obama/Dem policies that can be credited for the growth in Texas jobs. It worked in Texas but not in California, New York, etc. Just worked in red states. Go figure.

Ed Glaeser argues that it's not merely a function of having available land, but that zoning laws play a much larger part. But Steve knows that and has mentioned how people naturally start favoring restrictive zoning once they've got a nice place in California. Tyler Cowen instead argues that Texas political culture simply gives less influence to "Mantua moms".

Texas has also been blessed with gas, oil and minerals in its big dirt. High prices and recent innovations (fracking) have been helpful for the economy. Wind is plentiful in Texas as well, which doesn't hurt.

Having a long border with Mexico also means trade opportunities most states don't have and jobs in border patrolling (although not enough of them) that most states don't have.

Can Steve give us his guess at Perry's IQ. His GPA was not impressive, but he did end up as a pilot

"Upon graduation, he was commissioned in the United States Air Force, completed pilot training and flew C-130 tactical airlift in the United States, the Middle East, and Europe until 1977."

A lot of people want to be pilots but don't pass the required tests. I really don't think you'd find too many pilots sub120, but I don't know.

Texas isn't high on most people's lists of cultured, pleasant, non-barbaric places. I class it roughly with Alabama.

Last time I was in downtown Dallas, the choking smog, the dirt, a NAM donnybrook below my hotel window (the noise climbed 25 stories), the apparently limitless slum-like vacuity not more than a half mile away in every direction, the plastic empty people - made such a bad impression that I won't be back. By the way, what do you wager that there is a very specific reason why they won't tell us the average pay of all those "miraculous new jobs" in Texas?

So long as there is a significant higher earning white population it will make sense for a Mestizo dominated public sector to find ways to extract and spend as much of their money as possible.

Actually, if California is the example under examination, I think it's the Hispanics (and Asians) who tend to work in the private sector, while the whites (and especially blacks) skew more towards public sector jobs.

By the way, I put Texas at 25th in unemployment rates, below solid Red State marvels like Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, and Vermont.

Most of the energy states have low unemployment rates - Oklahoma (5.3%), North Dakota (3.2%), Louisiana (7.8%), and Wyoming (5.9%).

Texas's employment growth seems to result from three things that bode well for Texas but poorly for the rest of the US: high energy prices, growing economic ties with Mexico for which WE are on the losing end (we used to have a trade surplus with Mexico, now we have a deficit), and an increasingly unmanageable, unliveable major state on our West Coast that people and businesses are fleeing in droves.

"Upon graduation, he was commissioned in the United States Air Force, completed pilot training and flew C-130 tactical airlift in the United States, the Middle East, and Europe until 1977."

He joined in 1972, near the end of Vietnam. No one wanted in the military then. The military academies are thought of as selective, but I knew a guy who entered the Air Force Academy right about the time Perry entered the Air Force. I asked him how he got in. He replied: "It was easy. I was the only guy in my congressional district who applied."

Here's a back of the envelope calculation of per capita household debt / per capita income for 11 states.

California's residents are the most indebted, with household debt 170% of yearly income.

Texas residents are the least indebted with a debt to income ratio of only 88%.

This is not surprising since house prices are higher in California and Mortgages + Home Equity Loans are 80% of personal debt. (The other components Auto Loans, Credit Cards, and Student Loans are about 5% each)

Presumably, Californians have more assets to offset their larger liabilities.

Texas has a few things working in its favor, of which only one can Rick Perry take (partial) credit for:

1) Mineral wealth, put there by God, not Rick Perry (I hear he likes giving credit to God, so he shouldn't mind).

2) Proximity to Mexico at a time of increasing international trade (thanks to God, not Rick Perry).

3) Coastal access (thanks to God, not Rick Perry).

4) Lower costs of living compared to California.

5) The political dissolution of California (thanks to Goddess and California SWPLs, not Rick Perry).

6) Austin's tech industry, there long before Rick Perry was guv.

7) Texas's status as the only conservative megastate. Most western states have one big metro area - Arizona has Phoenix, Colorado has Denver, Utah has Salt Lake, Oregon has Portland. But Texas has at least 4 metro areas with over a million people, all reasonably close to each other.

We just went through a massive economic meltdown that left serious doubts about America's competitiveness. If you're a business looking to expand, you want lower costs and fewer regulations. Rick Perry can at best be said to have continued the reltively conservative traditions of Texas pols. Were he governor of any other state no one would be talking about him for president. It's his luck that none of the other candidates seem all theat impressive, either.

Presumably, Californians have more assets to offset their larger liabilities.

No, they've got cash flow, not real wealth. One medical emergency, job loss, demotion or bad year and they are instantly underwater on their leased autos, country clubs, credit cards, designer homes, etc. I'm betting the finances of a lot of Californians are like this guy's. What a sick, sad wreck.

Most of the American economy is just future demand pulled forward with debt and ginned-up dollars. Eventually you run out of future.

Articles like this are depressing in that they just highlight how unimpressive our politicians are. We're left trying to parse out the meager good qualities they might or might not really have.With the US at a crossroads today one thinks the situation would throw up public figures of greater stature; instead the opposite seems to be happening.The only thing I think is guaranteed is that no matter who wins I lose.

The silver lining to this cloud is that Hispanics seem to be concentrating in large, heavily-populated states like Texas. This means that their overall influence in government will be less than their numbers, since the Senate has equal representation for all states, and the electoral college apportions 100 of its 535 votes on a similar basis. This means that non-Hispanic whites will have relatively greater importance in government, compared to our population size, which will be useful if and when we decide to start throwing our weight around in our own interests.

This is one in a string of MSM stories that stretching back over a year to promote Rick Perry to the GOP masses with pseudo stories.

For example, Perry's strong boarder theatrics get relatively uncritical coverage in the MSM. This, despite his actions have nearly all been open boarder in effect.

Much like McCain got all the MSM love until he captured the GOP nomination, Perry is the anointed "conservative" challenger. The powers that be know that even if Perry beats Obama, they will have the same man in office.

"For example, Perry's strong bo[]rder theatrics get relatively uncritical coverage in the MSM. This, despite his actions have nearly all been open bo[]rder in effect."

Yes. He "screams" at Obama demanding enforcement at the border, but grants illegals in-state tuition (the first state to do it; he effectively launched the DREAM Act movement), opposes local law officers helping to enforce immigration laws, and opposes E-Verify.

Bottom line is you need to eliminate government benefits and jobs for illegals, and you need local enforcement because almost no one ever gets stopped by a federal law officer.

There are already 11 million illegals here and about 40% of them came legally but didn't leave. If you don't have interior enforcement you don't have shit.

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